Wednesday November 15th 2006 - tug shaping sessions at home

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

A few days ago I started shaping sessions with Lucy to get her to fall in love with our fleece tug. I put the tug on the floor, shut my mouth and don't give any cues and she's now at the point where I can be a couple of metres away from it and she'll enthusiastically go and pick it up and tonight she's starting to bring it to me. This is the first real shaping exercise Lucy has done and I'm brand new to it too. It's a really fun process, watching the dog learn how to think for herself and figure out on her own what gets rewarded. I got a new tug tonight and used it, and she had no problem transferring her behaviour to this new one.